


Paint The Catalyst

by orphan_account



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-14 03:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Painting is stress relief. It also, apparently, brings people back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Use of spoilers about season 6, just FYI.
> 
> And found families, because ugh, feelings about that line.
> 
> Title... I dunno. It popped into my head.

She and Chuck don't last long. Again. They never really do. She can't say she's surprised.

She goes home and starts working with her mother to take over the business.

Three weeks in, she needs a stress relief and buys herself art supplies, remembering an old conversation with Dan at one point about how half the paintings that were famous all came out of some form of relief.

She paints.

She wants to trash half of them, because she didn't mean to paint him, didn't want to paint him, and she did anyway.

She keeps going, and pretends not to notice when Serena, back from wherever she'd been, disappears with a few of the canvases.

* * *

Dan's back home, back in New York, back in Brooklyn, when he finds a local art gallery showing a new artist and decides to go in.

The paintings he sees floor him.

He doesn't even need to look at the artist's name to know that the person who painted the image of two people, side-by-side, with laptops on their laps and watching something together, is Blair Waldorf.

Another is what he knows is supposed to be a couple, one of the pair is a girl in a gown that's a swirl of red, brown hair, and the vaguest profile, the other, a man in a uniform, brown curly hair on his head, profile just as vague.

There are other paintings and he knows each and every one of those moments. The first painting, the couple with the laptops, is from that Valentine's, and Rosemary's Baby. The second, their kiss a year later.

Dan, on impulse, buys the one of them watching Rosemary's Baby. He leaves it in a corner of his bedroom at the loft and forgets about it for a while.

* * *

For a time, Blair is so overwhelmed with work that she forgets about Serena making off with some of the paintings. Dorota reminds her when she hands Blair an envelope with a check in it for the cost of one of her paintings.

Blair frowns the slightest bit in confusion for a moment before getting up and getting her things together. She goes to the gallery and convinces them to tell her who bought her painting.

She shows up on his doorstep twenty minutes later.

* * *

"Blair?" Dan asks, raising an eyebrow when Blair just glares.

"You bought one of my paintings. You! The one with the laptops? Really? Not even the softcore of us in the elevator that I know was for sale?" she says, pointedly eyeing him, so he sighs and lets her in.

"Honestly, I bought it on impulse. And yes, the laptops," Dan says, shrugging awkwardly. "Blair, why are you here?"

"Temporary insanity," she replies, rolling her eyes. "Or not. But, anyway, I didn't really want those paintings to actually be sold. All they were was working out feelings!"

"Feelings?" Blair rolls her eyes again and Dan smiles.

"Of course, that's what you pick up on. I just figured painting was better than keeping a diary again, after how that turned out," she says, walking around the counter and opening the drawer to pull out the pizza menu that's still there. "Breakfast At Tiffany's?"

"Blair, I can't." Dan takes the menu from her hand and sets it down, shaking his head and sighing. "I wrote a new book. Read more than just the parts about you, this time?" he asks, picking up a thick manila envelope and handing it to her.

Rather than leaving or making a scathing comment, Blair takes the envelope, sits down on Dan's couch, and starts reading. He smiles slightly and makes her a cup of tea, setting it down on the coffee table and going into his bedroom to finally unwrap the painting. He takes down the painting over the jukebox and sets it aside, replacing it with Blair's painting and smiling at it. Nobody but them will actually know who it is, or what that moment is.

He kind of likes it that way.

* * *

Blair reads, looking up surreptitiously when she hears the sound of plastic and biting back a smile when she sees Dan hanging the painting before returning to her reading.

It's not a sequel to Inside, but the players are the same. Different names, same character types. And it's... Them. Dan apparently can't write her to save his life, because Blair knows herself and there is no way she's as good as his book says, but it is them. Dan isn't Dan, but someone named Drake Hyde, and she's Briar Windsor, but it is them.

"You wrote a romance novel," she says, glancing up at Dan, who shrugs and straightens the painting.

"Is it a romance novel if it doesn't end well?" he asks, sitting down next to her.

"Ask Nicholas Sparks," she retorts, automatically stretching her legs out to rest in his lap. "It's not terrible, though. And stop spoiling the ending."

"Then finish reading it already," Dan replies, picking up the menu for her favorite pizza place and dialing the number quickly. He already knows she'll want her usual.

* * *

"You left out the pregnancy."

"It wasn't my place to write about it. Or what the accident meant when it came to that," Dan says, shrugging.

"This from the guy who wrote Inside. You don't care about that," Blair replies, still reading.

"I do when I know the grief of losing a kid. Not in the same way, but it still hurt enough for me to not want to take advantage of that," he says, shrugging again and getting up to get the door and pay the pizza man. He sets it on the counter and gets plates, serving up Blair's and giving it to her before sitting back down.

"I had a pregnancy scare. With Chuck," Blair says quietly, sighing and setting the book down to eat. "I actually found myself with the disturbingly high priority of wondering if you'd be... around again."

Dan sets his plate down and hugs her for a moment, murmuring quietly in her ear, "I told you then and I'll tell you now: You'll still have me. We don't have to get back together. Just know you have me."

"It's like Gossip Girl said. Blood bonds don't make family. It's those that know us best," Blair murmurs and Dan raises an eyebrow. "Yes, I just said that. And if you want to complain about sap, you wrote a romance novel about us."

"Point. And yeah, family. You're more family than anyone else is right now," Dan replies, smiling and pulling away from the hug to eat.

"Then you should stay with me. I saw the blast about your dad and Ivy. I figured you probably want to get out of here. I have spare rooms. Stay with me," Blair says and Dan nods, smiling wider.

"Thanks, Blair."

"Don't mention it, Humphrey."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the shortest of short, oh god. And horribly jossed, obviously. I have rewritten this half a dozen times and it's all come out like this, so.
> 
> And now, without further gilding the lily and no more ado, I present the non-existent ending of painter!Blair. (Next time, I'm just going to make it a one shot, jeez.)

Two months into Dan living at her apartment, and neither of them are complaining. Dan is happy to claim the title of being the only person other than Dorota to see Blair when she's painting, because she'll pull her hair back and still end up with paint in it, and honestly, Dan finds it adorable.

(She usually flings paint at him if he says as much, though.)

He'll usually set up in her room while she paints, writing a better ending to the story while she paints it.

They aren't dating. They're still just friends. But honestly, Dan's happy with that, as long as Blair is.

It's almost a repeat of when they were dating. The only difference is that they don't kiss once they've both brushed their teeth. Dorota serves them coffee and breakfast and they squabble over who first gets what section of the paper. Blair wins every time and triumphantly claims the arts and life section while Dan looks at the headlines and smiles at her when he thinks she isn't looking.

Serena officially moves out after another month and Dan ends up moving into her room. Blair complains that he takes too long in the bathroom in the mornings and he replies something about pots and kettles, but they make it work.

When Blair's at work or school (because she insists on getting a business degree), Dan will hole himself up in her room and write. That's where Blair finds him after work one day and smiles for a second before clearing her throat.

"You do have your own room, you know," she comments and Dan smiles at her.

"I know. But I write better in here. I'm almost done, so please don't kick me out yet?" he asks and she sighs, conceding with a nod and picking out something comfortable to change into. "Painting?"

"Movie. I was thinking of going to the Film Forum tonight. They're showing Nenette again," Blair says and Dan smiles at her.

"Can I join you?"

"I won't even make you sit two seats away," she replies and Dan grins, saving what he has before getting changed.


End file.
